John du Pont speaks with wrestlers during a break from training at the 14,000-square-foot Foxcatcher National Training Center on his Newtown Square, Pa. property in February 1992. (Photo: The News Journal)

Wrestler Mark Schultz (second from right) joined cast and crew at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of "Foxcatcher," which recounts the relationship between Schultz and his brother, Dave, with John du Pont. Actors (from right) Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum play the brothers. Also at the festival are producer Megan Ellison, director Bennet Miller (second from left) and actor Steve Carell, who plays du Pont. (Photo: Alastair Grant AP)

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Steve Carell (left) and Channing Tatum star in "Foxcatcher," due in theaters in November. The Oscar-caliber film recounts the 1996 murder of Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz by John du Pont, founder of the Delaware Museum of Natural History.(Photo: Scott Garfield)

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In the months before John E. du Pont shot and killed Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz in 1996, signs of his worsening mental illness were on display, according to court testimony and interviews by News Journal reporters following the killing.

Du Pont, founder of the Delaware Museum of Natural History, had held a loaded machine gun to the chest of another wrestler, removed treadmills and bicycles from his estate because he thought their clocks were sending him backward in time and shot a group of nesting geese because he believed they were casting spells on him.

The combination of du Pont's unspooling life, his inherited wealth and his final violent act have brought the 18-year-old slaying at du Pont's 880-acre estate in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, back to the forefront in the form of a heavily-anticipated Oscar-caliber film due in November.

"Foxcatcher," starring Steve Carell and Channing Tatum, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May. It not only earned glowing reviews and early Oscar buzz, but its director, Bennett Miller ("Moneyball," "Capote") won the Best Director award.

The film will re-tell the grisly murder and shed Hollywood's bright lights on a case that made national headlines. It gripped the Brandywine region for the first two days after the shooting as du Pont, 57, barricaded himself in his 6,256-square-foot home, a replica of Montpelier, the former Virginia home of President James Madison, that du Pont called "Foxcatcher."

"The case had crime, sports, mental illness and all the wealth in the world. It had everything," says Thomas Bergstrom, the du Pont attorney who gave the defense's 75-minute closing argument in 1997. "The only thing missing was sex."

Du Pont, who died in 2010 in prison, was the great-great-grandson of Eleuthere Irene du Pont, founder of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, commonly known as DuPont. His father, William, had been president of Delaware Trust Co. and founded Delaware Park. In 1987, it was estimated that John du Pont was worth $200 million.

Based on true events, FOXCATCHER tells the dark and fascinating story of the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between an eccentric multi-millionaire and two champion wrestlers. (5/19/14)

'Kaleidoscope of madness'

Before the shooting and growing paranoia, du Pont was known for a dizzying array of interests, including natural history, law enforcement, exploring, horse breeding, sky diving, philanthropy and wrestling.

He eventually built a top-rate, 14,000-square-foot wrestling training center on his estate, which he named the Foxcatcher National Training Center. It drew some of the best wrestlers in the country. The group of wrestlers that trained at Foxcatcher -- one of the biggest wrestling rooms in the world with three 50-by-50 wrestling mats -- included Schultz, who won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and was a leading contender for the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta before his death.

It was Jan. 26, 1996, when du Pont made his fateful drive to Schultz's home on the du Pont estate. After Schultz said, "Hi coach," to the heir to the du Pont family fortune, du Pont reached out of his silver Lincoln Town Car with a .44-caliber revolver.

Schultz's wife, Nancy, heard the first gunshot and thought her husband was target shooting. She then walked to the front door and heard the second shot and saw her husband face-down in the driveway with du Pont's hand wrapped around a gun, jutting from the driver's side window.

She watched as a screaming du Pont shot Schultz a third time as he lay on the ground. After du Pont drove away, Nancy Schultz ran out and hugged her motionless husband. The couple had two children at the time of the killing -- a son, 9, and a daughter, 6.

Shultz, 36, was later pronounced dead from three gunshot wounds to the chest.

After the shooting, du Pont drove to his main house on the property and locked himself inside for 48 hours as more than 70 police and SWAT team members negotiated his surrender.

Investigators knew that du Pont was a gun enthusiast and a marksman with a well stocked arsenal and a large indoor shooting range. He called the range the J. Edgar Hoover Police Pistol Training Center and officers from nearby agencies, including the Pennsylvania State Police, would regularly shoot there.

Police on the scene also knew du Pont even had his own tank that he would sometimes drive through his estate to a neighbor's house.

"It was bizarre. You know this guy is in there and he killed somebody and you're wondering what's going to happen next?," says Cris Barrish, senior reporter at The News Journal, who was outside the gate of du Pont's compound during the siege. "Are they going to get him? Is there going to be an explosion? Are we going to hear gunshots? We were waiting for something big to happen."

Du Pont was captured when he left his home on a cool Sunday afternoon to fix a boiler that police had turned off two days earlier. A Newtown police officer confronted du Pont, who tried to run into a greenhouse before he was tackled and taken into custody. He was wearing his "Team Foxcatcher" wrestling shirt at the time of his arrest.

A horde of local and national media had been camped outside of the estate during the standoff, along with gawking neighbors and curiosity-seekers. The attention led to articles and news stories about the history of the du Ponts, which includes past marriages between cousins. A New York Daily News headline read, "There's been lots of nuts in this family tree. Generations of inbreeding, scandals, cults and vicious feuds."

At the close of the five-week, first-degree murder trial, Bergstrom, now 71 practicing law at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney in Philadelphia, gave the defense's closing argument, telling jurors that they were an "eyewitness to insanity, spectators to a kaleidoscope of madness."

In an interview last week, Bergstrom said du Pont went long periods of time where he would not talk to him. Du Pont thought he should be tried in a military court and was convinced that Schultz was a secret Russian agent, he added.

"As he took medication, he became much more communicative," Bergstrom said. "But he never got to the point where he was willing to acknowledge that what he did was really murder. It was always self defense because Schultz was a bad guy and part of a conspir acy."

"So easy to paint him as evil"

In the end, the jury decided that du Pont was guilty of third-degree murder and found to be mentally ill. He lived in various mental hospitals and prisons until 2010 when the 72-year-old died of natural causes at a prison hospital in Somerset County.

Du Pont, who also had a seizure disorder and a history of alcoholism, was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The legacy of his violent downfall was summed up by The News Journal's editorial board at the time of his conviction: "Had John du Pont been institutionalized and treated years ago before his bizarre behavior grew dangerous, Mrs. Schultz and her children would not be mourning the death of a good husband and father."

Bergstrom said he will be watching the film with a keen eye this fall, hoping that producers portray du Pont's mental illness properly, avoiding Hollywood's sometimes-cartoonish depictions.

"I'm anxious to see if they do justice to his illness. It's so easy to paint him an an evil man, but on the other hand the reality is that he was really a sick man," he said. "From what I understand the film is pretty good. We'll see."

On the day of the shooting, Martha du Pont, the wife of John's brother Henry E.I. du Pont, said John du Pont had refused medical care for his mental illness for a long time.

"I kept telling everyone something like this was going to happen," she told The News Journal at the time. "He's been very unstable and saying wacky things like he's the Dali Lama of the United States."

In the months leading up to the killing, those around him also reported seeing him drive a pair of new Lincoln Continentals into a pond on his estate and try to block what he thought were hidden passages in his house with razor wire. He regularly walked around with a loaded gun.

Former Foxcatcher wrestler Jack Cuvo told reporters at the scene that du Pont had "lost it," adding, "He just stared and talked to the walls. He would see or think he saw animals coming out of them."

Two days after the shooting as the story of du Pont's long-unraveling life became clear and the death of a beloved Olympic wrestler settled in, The News Journal's Maureen Milford wrote about what Hollywood producers would eventually work on themselves, years later.

"John E. du Pont, a scion of the chemical dynasty, is at the center of a drama in Newtown Square, Pa., that a Hollywood screenwriter would be hard-pressed to create," she wrote. "The wealthy, but troubled philanthropist is suspected of gunning down a young father and world-class athlete."